Life – Page 12 – King Rat

Wiscon 33 Experience

secret-passageway

Why Wiscon?

I haven’t even left Madison. I intended to wait a few days after
returning to Seattle to write about my Wiscon experience. I’m sitting
in Michaelangelo’s coffee shop, where I intended to read some of the
books I bought. I sat down, pulled Feeling Very Strange
from my backpack, and then just looked at it. All I’ve got going
through my head is my experience, and I don’t think I can read. So I
write instead, though this won’t get published until I get home.

I decided to attend Wiscon after the kerfluffle last year over
what I wrote about Joe Abercrombie’s Before They Are Hanged.
Some commenters on Abercrombie’s blog accused me of … well,
I’ll just quote one:

Mr Rat sounds like he’s been brainwashed by the feminist
lit department at his university, who read oppression into every
interaction between men and women.

I thought this was quite amusing. I’ve never taken a feminist lit
class. Ever. I’ve taken only the Intro to the Canon type of literature classes,
and I don’t mean the feminist canon. I attended the University of
Idaho. Idaho! In the center of the whitest Congressional district in
the U.S. at the time. A state where the women’s groups that get any
attention are headed by Phyllis Schlafly. This was after attending
high school run by the Catholic church and only a decade away from
being an all boys prep school. Don’t even get me started on my
elementary and junior high education! There I was taught that
dinosaur fossils were planted by the devil’s minions to trick us.

The point being, no one has ever indoctrinated me in proper or
even improper feminist theory.

But afterward, I thought perhaps I should learn more. I subscribed
to Feminist SF – The Blog!. My friend Kim planned on attending Wiscon
last year and told me about it, encouraging me to go. Last year I had
mom’s illness and impending death to deal with, so I didn’t. Kim
attended and returned with awesome things to say about it. Earlier
this year, I decided to go.

Introversion and Culture

I’m not the most extroverted of people. A fair number of people
seem surprised that I am shy. I can fake outgoingness sometimes. The
best comparison I have to the trepidation I felt about Wiscon is my
experience going to India. I was stepping into a foreign culture. It
had values about which I was not familiar. It had unwritten rules
about which I was completely unaware. I went by myself, without a
protective posse. I stood out as not being part of the locally
dominant culture. All these things worked against me in India, and
all of these elements were present to some degree with attending
Wiscon.

I did two things (at least) though to make things easier on myself. My
first tactic I chose consciously. I would not open my mouth to
express any opinion in any panel programming. Questions were fine.
Requesting clarification I thought was safe. But I decided against
expressing any sort of opinion.

This goes back to something Nelson told me 15 years ago. Your job
is just to listen right now. It was a different context, but the
issue was the same as now. I am an opinionated guy, and I have an
instinctive reaction to spout my opinion to any and all who come
within earshot (or read my crap online). Regardless if I was asked for my opinion. Regardless
if I have any background information. Regardless if I knew the
reasons why other people had their opinions. I’m better than I was nearly half a lifetime ago, but I’m still pretty bad
about it.

That’s the intellectual reason to keep my mouth shut. It’s valid,
but the driving force was emotional. I fear being wrong. I fear being
attacked. I fear getting jumped on. My fear is not rational. Others
may have a perfectly rational fear of attack. I do not. I have lived
and learned from every personal attack. I’ve thrived even. Yet every
time I write something negative about a book or express an opinion
online, the pit of my stomach drops before I press publish.

The second choice I made was not conscious. I didn’t shy away from
controversial panel topics to attend, but I did avoid those with the
most inflammatory descriptions. The first panel I attended tackled
the topic of the portrayal of the working class in speculative
fiction. I’m really no longer working class, but I still identify
because I grew up in a working class family. I picked mostly
literature related topics. I picked topics with panelists whose names
I knew.

RaceFail floated as a prominent issue at Wiscon. The people
who were the most involved in RaceFail discussions on blogs were
either names I didn’t know well, or didn’t come to Wiscon. Writers of
color (i.e., those with the most at stake immediately in RaceFail)
that I’ve read and who were at Wiscon included Nnedi Okorafor and …
Nnedi Okorafor. And although RaceFail directly concerns literature,
discussion about RaceFail is one level removed from books. Keeping my
panels directly related to literature kept me one level away from
RaceFail discussions. I did attend one panel on multiculturalism and
thought it was great discussion, but I doubt it would register much
controversy compared to other rooms.

I don’t believe it was an accident that the things I consciously
thought about when choosing panels led me away from scary stuff. If I
go next year (and I’m leaning towards attending) I think I will
examine the choices I’ve made to make sure I’m not avoiding difficult
topics. Or at least if I am avoiding them it’s a considered choice.

I’m not sure whether my panel choices was a good thing or not. One
one hand, I didn’t freak myself out about a topic that won’t be
resolved for quite some time anyway. On the other hand, I learned
about 5% of what I could have learned. Had I thought more I might
have chose different.

Social interaction

People come back to Wiscon from all over the United States and the
world year after year. It’s not just a place for discussion of
feminist topics. It’s a place where people of like mind return for
fellowship or sisterhood (to use both gender loaded terms). It’s an
environment that can strengthen people’s resolve before returning
home to fight battles alone or in smaller groups.

There’s a drawback to that though. For the non-outgoing, there
isn’t a lot of support for integrating into the community
particularly in the first day or so, at least as far as I could tell.

Returning attendees eagerly embrace their friends from previous
years, rejoicing at the end of the interruption of their camaraderie.
Groups of friends unload their belongings and decamp to food or other
activities, leaving the less connected behind. I’m sure not everyone
experiences this, but I know I did and several people I talked to
related similar experiences for their first time attending.

Friday night I attended the First Wiscon Dinner which seemed to
have no support other than a line in the program guide. Ostensibly an
event where a few experienced hands would welcome first timers to
acculturate us, instead 25 of us newbies stood around at the
designated meeting point wondering what the plan was supposed to be.
We eventually split into three groups because the word from the
Madison local newbies was that close by restaurants wouldn’t be able
to handle large groups. I quite enjoyed the small group I dined with,
and chatted with a couple from my group throughout the convention.

I didn’t hide out in my hotel room. I purposefully planted myself
in the hotel lobby during breaks and periodically introduced myself
to people. None of those conversations lasted long nor did any of
those folks return to conversation with me a second time during the
first couple of days. I wasn’t dismissed, but I didn’t feel any real
engagement either.

The first time someone initiated conversation with me was Sunday.
M. Rickert engaged me in conversation Sunday morning, sensing I was
bewildered and not pulled into the thick of things, sharing her first
Wiscon experience from a few years ago. I don’t know the causes,
whether our interaction was the key or something else was working,
but I subsequently hooked into conversation with people better. Lunch
with Liz Henry and C-ko (C-ko being the one person I knew) and a
dessert table oddly magnetized to Seattleites for the guest of honor
speeches. Maybe I just felt more comfortable by that point.

Authors

One big reason to go to Wiscon was to find more good literature that I didn’t know about. I bought books and I got to meet some authors.

Though probably working off bad assumptions, I didn’t chat too
much with author panelists. I know they are real people. Most have
day jobs. But I still have them on somewhat of a pedestal, and I
didn’t want to turn into a fanboy in the hallways. And neither could
my puny brain come up with reasons to chat with them or with other
panelists. In retrospect, the panel topic would have been a great
icebreaker for me to chat with any panelist. Though in most cases I
couldn’t have chatted coherently on the panel topics immediately
afterward anyway, even just to ask questions.

SignOut on Monday is kind of the designated fanboy event. A fair
number of the authors in attendance set up at tables so folks can get
their books signed. I bought a dozen or so books by authors who
attended and got them signed at SignOut: Geoff Ryman, Ellen Klages,
David Schwartz, M. Rickert, Nnedi Okorafor, John Joseph Adams, Carol
Emshwiller, and Nisi Shawl. In most cases I chatted a bit
with them as well. Other than guests of honor Ellen Klages and Geoff
Ryman, most didn’t have lines of more than one or two. Of course, all
were friendly. I knew this, but I still have a twinge of surprise. Cue Bart Simpson: I will not put authors on pedestals. I will not put authors on pedestals.

I made a point to pick up something by M. Rickert to thank her for chatting with me Sunday.
That turned out to be Feeling Very Strange, an anthology of slipstream stories. I’ve never read much slipstream though.
I chatted with David Schwartz and M.
Rickert (sitting side by side) talked with me about the genre. I tend
not to like literature I don’t understand. Slipstream is designed
around cognitive dissonance; by definition it will be hard to
understand. But I wanted to try it out because I hadn’t done so
before, and M. Rickert writes slipstream. I may get
something out of it, but I’m pretty sure the pieces that don’t work
for me really aren’t going to work for me.

At the Sunday night Tiptree Award ceremonies, Nisi Shawl received,
instead of the traditional Tiptree chocolate, a pie. I thought I
recognized a kindred pie aficionado, so when I got her to sign Filter
House, I asked her about the chocolate replacement thing. Turns out
she gets migraines from chocolate, and thinks pie is the best thing
ever. So I mentioned my own predilection for pie and how I made
friends through Pie Night. Her response: Where? Can I come? I knew
she lived in Seattle, and kind of hoped she’d want to come. Fanboy me
emerges. To tell the truth, I haven’t yet read anything she’s
written, but she seemed like one of the nicest and most thoughtful
people on any of the panels I attended. So I wanted to get to know
her. Hopefully she’ll actually be able to come to the next Pie Night.

Geoff Ryman also impressed me. I’ve only really read his story
V.A.O. before. I’m fairly familiar with his Mundane Manifesto and the
movement he’s trying to start. I appreciate the stance, but I enjoy
non-Mundane SF too much to stick to stories that fit that mold only,
as he has advocated at times. I attended one panel he was on, and had
him sign a book at SignOut. Despite having only the limited
interaction, when he ran into me on the streets of Madison this
morning, he stopped to chat with me. Nothing substantive, but I was
nevertheless impressed. There are a lot of people at Wiscon and not
all of them can register on a person’s consciousness.

Wiscon Programming

I’m not normally one to gush
about anything, but the panel topics were chock full of substantive
discussion. Sure, a few of them were fluff, and I enjoyed those of
that ilk that I attended as well. In most time slots I circled at
least two or three possible panels. Each panel had enough content to
generate at least one separate post. Some had enough for two or
three.

Not being a con person, I don’t know how much Wiscon’s panel
selection/assignment method differs from other SF conventions. Panels
have a mix of professionals and fandom. Any attendee can put their
name in the hat ahead of time to be on panels. I don’t know how the
programming committee selects folks, but it seemed to work out well
for the most part. In only one case did it seem like a panelist was
outclassed by the material and the rest of the panel.

In a couple of cases, the moderator could have done a better job
leading the panel. Some kind of just were there, and their panels
tended to ramble more. A couple panels had members who just had to
talk. The moderator for one of those never showed. In the other case,
the moderator was the person who dominated the discussion. Neither
person ruined the panel, but I would have liked to have heard more
from some of the other panelists. Three moderators were outstanding:
Fred Schepartz on the working class, L. Timmel Duchamp on book
reviewing, and Jesse the K on feminist/leftist SF book groups.

Next year?

I can’t say I’ve found my tribe yet. I don’t bond deeply, quickly
enough to make that assertion. I have found kindred spirits and
content that serves my intellectual craving. I felt fulfilled like I
haven’t in a long time. There’s something about engaging in deep
discussion that I enjoy. About books no less. I read a lot. It’s hard
to find people who read as much or as widely as I do. Wiscon is full
of people who outclass me in that respect. Full of people who
outclass me in a lot of respects. That’s stimulating.

Next year’s Wiscon guests of honor or Nnedi Okorafor and Mary Anne
Mohanraj. I really liked Zahrah the Windseeker, Nnedi’s
young adult novel. Her manner inclines me to turn into a fanboy.
She’s nice, and incredibly positive. It took a couple minutes of cajoling to get
her to say she didn’t like Twilight. To paraphrase her: I don’t like tearing down
authors who are just doing their thing.

I haven’t read Mary Anne
Moharaj’s fiction. Mary Anne wrote
a couple of thoughtful pieces for John Scalzi’s blog that made clear to me
some of the issues of RaceFail. I hadn’t mentally connected her to those pieces
until this morning.

Both guest of honor selections make me want to go next year.

Photo Wiscon 32 by Liz Henry used under a Creative Commons By-Nd 2.0 license.

Empire Builder

I leave this evening for Madison, Wisconsin. I’ll be taking Amtrak’s Empire Builder train to Chicago, after which they’ll bus me to Madison. I have a flurry of last minute preparations to accomplish. I’m not freaking out over stuff to get done at the last minute, I’m just not the type who packs and gets everything ready a week in advance. Clean the cat box. Do a couple loads of laundry. Change my reservation to drop me at the right station in Madison (actually just finished that). Get some snacks. Pack.

The one thing I have done is pick out my reading material for the trip. My MP3 player is loaded up with audiobooks. I have four physical books I’m bringing with. I won’t read them all, but since my reading choices generally go with my mood I want options. However, I brought small paperbacks for space. Since I’m going to a literary convention, I suspect I’ll pick up a book or two while there.

The convention is Wiscon, a feminist science fiction convention. Although I’m a feminist, I don’t study feminism. I have no idea what kind of feminist I am, and I have no idea what kind of feminism predominates at the convention. (How very privileged of me to not have to declare!) So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there’ll be enough that I find interesting.

I’m going because some of the most inventive science fiction and fantasy writers call themselves feminists, and I’m hoping to find undiscovered (by me) literature that doesn’t fit the mold. In particular, I’m looking forward to hearing Tiptree co-winner Nisi Shawl read.

Photo Amtrak train by skyler miller used under a Creative Commons By-Nc-Sa 2.0 license.

Personals sites

One of my long term goals is to get married. I quote that because I am not hooked to the idea of a legal marriage or the ceremony itself. What I’d like to do is be in my old age and have been with the same person for decades. I look at my grandparents and think I want that.

I signed up earlier this week for a personals web site. I’ve had accounts on these things in the past, but I’ve used the free versions. Never with good results. I sprung for a paid version this time. That was a tough mental bump to get over. The mental logic is: I should be able to meet people on my own god given personality and ability. Paying for a personals site is giving up. It’s moral failure. That’s my instant reaction anyway.

The thing is: the dating pool in my social group is pretty small. If you don’t believe me, I have a diagram I can show you. I need to expand my possibilities. New groups of people. New activities. New sources.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t close off possibilities. So I sucked it up and pulled the debit card out of the wallet. Maybe it works. Maybe something else I do works.

Why Twitter is awesome

It seems to be in vogue among my friends to complain about the uselessness of Twitter. To those who say this, I give you the following exchange:

scalzi (award-winning author John Scalzi): Breakfast: Claritin, Diet Sunkist and a multivitamin. Now I’m ready to face the day.
nalohopkinson (award-winning author Nalo Hopkinson): Breakfast: ripe plantain rounds fried in olive oil, lightly salted; sage n spinach wilted in butter n olive oil; bacon.
kingrat (award-winning, if you count my Seattle P-I newspaper carrier of the month deal in 1983): @scalzi @nalohopkinson ‘s breakfast sounds much tastier.
scalzi: @kingrat I don’t think it’s a huge surprise to discover @nalohopkinson OR her breakfast are cooler than me or mine, do you?
nalohopkinson: @scalzi @kingrat A lot of it is in the description. Keeping my writerly hand in.
scalzi: @nalohopkinson Well, and the fact that unlike my breakfast, your breakfast consists of actual, you know, FOOD.
nalohopkinson: @kingrat @scalzi scalzi’s breakfast this morning is definitely…picturesque.
nalohopkinson: @scalzi I’ve found that food is generally better to eat than non-food.

Need a simple universal remote

Hello lazyweb!

My stepfather is functionally illiterate. Normally he can get by with help from my brother and I without too much difficulty, as we handle his mail for him. However, we’ve run into a situation where we’re kind of stuck: his television.

He has satellite television because the cable company wanted large amounts of money to run cable from the highway to the house. As seems to be the case lots of times with cable/satellite/television setups, this requires two remotes: the television remote for power and volume, and the cable/satellite remote for channels. The problem we’ve run into is that dad sometimes hits the wrong button and changes the channel, or the source, or something else on the TV or satellite and then only gets a blank screen or static. If he lived next door, we could walk over and fix it. It’s a two hour drive.

tekpal-remote What we’d like to find is a simple universal remote. In other words, one that has only a few buttons and doesn’t require switching from “device” to “television” to use properly. Volume and power operate on the television; channel changing operates on the satellite receiver. Automatically. You’d think something like that would be out there. I’ve wanted something like that myself but never found it, though I haven’t looked particularly hard. It’s necessary for dad, or he’s going to go weeks without TV sometimes when neither my brother or I can get there right away. Before mom died, this wasn’t a problem; she’d fix things.

sony-remote

What would be ideal in appearance is this Tek Pal Remote Control. But that operates only on a TV. A basic two device remote
like Sony’s is a little more complicated, but would work if it didn’t require switching back and forth between the two devices. Unfortunately, it does require switching as far as I can tell.

I’ve found a couple that will lock the volume to the television, but none that lock the channel changing to the other device.

So, anyone got any suggestions?

Thomas Ricks on Iraq

I read Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco earlier this year. That was all about the invasion and bungling of the war in Iraq. He has a new book out, The Gamble, about the surge. Despite being frustrated by the book, I thought it was illuminating. I may pick up The Gamble because I don’t think I’ve got nearly the same coverage of information on the surge as I did on earlier efforts in Iraq. I haven’t decided yet.

I did take the opportunity to attend a speaking event he did at the Seattle Public Library on Thursday. It’s kind of the 20 minute version of his book. Here’s the points I took away from it (some of these came from the Q&A):

Ricks sees Obama’s approach as somewhat similar to Bush’s, pre-surge days. At the time, Bush’s policy was to turn as much stuff over to the Iraqis and get the hell out. They weren’t ready, and the things we did were counter-productive. Obama’s policy is to get out by middle of next year. Which means we’d have to turn as much stuff over to the Iraqis as possible and get the hell out. It could be doomed to as much failure as Bush’s attempt.
There’s no good options anymore. It’s trying to figure out the least bad option.
The surge failed. Security is better, but there’s been no political compromise. The point was to improve security so political compromise could be made.
Shiites believe they won, so they don’t want to compromise. Sunnis believe they are linked to Sunnis in the region and so should have more clout. Kurds will attempt to be as separate as possible de facto, no matter the result. None have any proclivity to compromise.
He sees Pakistan as the real danger. Iraq won’t be solved, but they don’t have the infrastructure to be dangerous. Afghanistan might be solved, and they don’t have the infrastructure either. Pakistan might fall apart, and they have nuclear weapons.

Winners of the Insult Contest

I hereby announce the winners for my Insult King Rat contest.

Christopher Mendes gets first link for saying he would bescumber me if I was already fimicolous. Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I suspect he typo-ed his entry by omitting the word not.

And I’ll give eliZZZa a link for saying I’m driven by larmoyance. My friends and I weren’t quite sure what she meant by that, as the definitions of larmoyant didn’t quite work in context. We think she meant to say I was a crybaby, but we are just guessing.

Anyway, here’s hoping you get some traffic for your efforts. Though it did seem like people weren’t even trying.

Seeing Blood Clots Using Ultrasound

Today’s adventure in chauffeuring my grandfather around took us to Seattle Cardiology (at Swedish Cherry Hill campus) for a follow-up visit after his recent hospitalizations. Gramps wanted me to accompany him into the rooms for the actual checkup. Usually Gram goes, but today was her pinochle game. Gramps wanted me to go in so he could have a second set of ears on what the doc said. The better to remember everything.

The first hour we sat in a darkened room as a technician applied a hand-held ultrasound device to Gramps’ legs, looking for blood clots. We knew there was one, because that’s what his emergency room visits told us. But where exactly and perhaps even how many we didn’t know.

What I didn’t know was that they could use this device to look for clots. It appears to be much the same device used to take images of fetuses in the womb. Stick some goop on the end, push against the skin, see a cross-section of the insides. In this case, the leg.

I could see on the screen black spots, which the technician told me were veins and arteries. A clot sort of looks like a filled in spot. In addition, the technician would press on Gramps’ leg near the ultra-sound wand. You could see the spots squish. He said a blood clot wouldn’t compress like that.

Anyhoo, the technician found the clot. It doesn’t change anything Gramps has to do, but I suppose now they can better monitor it over the six to twelve months a blood clot is supposed to take to dissolve naturally. I put that in quotes because it doesn’t dissolve, but despite being told the process, I can’t repeat it particularly accurately.

Another technician also downloaded a bunch of information from Gramps’ pacemaker. Hang an electronic ring of some sort of my grandfather’s chest, and it reads information transmitted from the pacemaker. They didn’t tell use anything about what they read this time.

Actual visit with the doctor resulted in keep following the discharge instructions and we’ll see you in 4 to 6 weeks.

Image by Greg Younger used under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license. This is not a picture of anyone checking my grandfather; the device is similar but not quite the same.

Blood clot in the leg

If my experience with psychosis wasn’t enough, today I also got some bad news about my grandparents. They returned last night from a Caribbean cruise.

My grandmother informed me that Gramps had some sort of heart issue on the plane trip returning to Seattle. The flight crew gave him oxygen, which s

Well, as I typed out this entry I got a phone call from my grandmother to tell me the paramedics were at their condo and Gramps was going to the E.R. He complained of shortness of breath. I called my brother immediately because last time he got mad I didn’t call right away. Then both of us headed to Providence hospital which is where he was to be taken.

All of us waited at the hospital for hours. Though quiet when I arrived, shortly after A.M.R. brought Gramps in, the E.R. got slammed with only one doctor on duty. Somewhere around 5 a.m. though they determined that Gramps had a blood clot in his leg. They though a small piece of it might have traveled to his lungs, causing shortness of breath both on the flight from Cabo to Seattle as well as Sunday night.

Due to his advanced age and multiple heart medications, they decided to admit my grandfather. He’s been at Providence since. It’s possible he will go home tomorrow. However, he will be using a walker from now on.

I’m glad he’s recovering. The event is accelerating some of my plans and changing others, but I’ll detail that later. I’ll be spending more time helping them though, and it’s caused me to be even more blunt with them about some changes they need to make.

Psychotic Breakdown

For privacy reasons, I am leaving out names from this story. Just don’t ask.

Last night while I was at Quinn’s Pub with friends, I got several phone calls from a woman with whom I’ve gone on a couple of dates over the last few weeks. Since Quinn’s was rather loud and I didn’t want to rudely interrupt the dinner party, I let the calls go to voice mail. When I left the restaurant, I checked them. The first came from B asking if I planned to go out dancing at Noc Noc later, as she was considering heading going to Club V. She called a second time about 30 minutes later saying she thought Club V was too expensive and she might go to the Noc Noc instead.

I thought the calls a bit odd, since in my conversation with her the previous night I’d been pretty clear I planned to attend the second night of Fever (a new disco night) at the Noc Noc. Nevertheless, I called her back and offered to drive to her place to give her a ride to Noc Noc if she wished. She said that would be fine, and that a friend of hers would be meeting her at the park and ride near her place to go as well. I said I would be happy to drive her as well so they wouldn’t have to take the bus.

I arrived about 5 minutes later than I expected due to writing up the Quinn’s review, playing with the site’s infrastructure, and not watching the time. Now the first really strange thing of the night happened. I pulled into B’s parking lot and called her to say I’d arrived. She didn’t answer, so I left a short message saying I’d arrived. I would have walked up to her place and knocked, but I didn’t know the unit in which she lived. In retrospect, that now appears deliberate. Five minutes later I called again, as she hadn’t walked out. This time she answered and said she’d be out shortly, and apologized for being weird. Ten minutes later, still no B. I called again, and again she said she’d be out, again apologizing for how weird everything was. I don’t recall the exact conversation. I thought it odd, but still I hadn’t clued in. Ten minutes after that she finally came out. I was actually a bit annoyed at having waited for 25 minutes, though I held my tongue because I’d arrived late and girls sometimes just take a while.

I drove across the street to pick up J at the park and ride, after which the three of us headed toward the freeway and downtown. I had a Pigeon John C.D. playing, and told them to pick something else if they’d like something else. B immediately and curtly stated Can we just not have music? so I quickly hit the power button. Her manner seemed really odd, but getting my knickers in a twist seemed overkill. Heading downtown on the freeway, B started talking about how she had a bad feeling about the night. Then my grandfather called my cell phone. As he’s been in ill health lately, I reached for the phone to take the call. B screeched Don’t answer that! I said that I had to, it was my grandparents. Everything was fine with them and I got off the phone in under 30 seconds. Then B reported that she’d forgot something at home (never specified) and could we go back and get it.

So I got off I-5, crossed the overpass, and drove back the way we came. When we got to B’s parking lot, things got really strange. She started talking about how she couldn’t go back in. She was afraid to go back in. Both J and I offered to walk up with her to make sure there wasn’t someone lurking in the apartment, or a fire had been started or anything. But she just couldn’t bring herself to go back in. By this point I knew something was really wrong, but I didn’t know what. I have friends who really believe in spirits and premonitions and supernatural crap. I don’t. I think it’s 99% hooey, but I’m also not about to get in someone’s face about it either. An illogical premonition that was so bad we couldn’t do anything was just the start.

B got back in the car, but stated she didn’t think we should go dancing now. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Can we go get some food or something? I had no desire to eat, but I figured if it would calm her down that would not be a bad thing. So I started the car out of the parking lot.

And that’s when I recall things really went strange. Perhaps B had said something earlier, but I don’t recall it. She started talking about numbers. I was a 4 or a 7, and B was a 7 or a 13 and she was just sure that the combination of the three of us was just bad. I know nothing of numerology though. J and I started humoring B to calm her down. B took a phone call from someone, and then hung up.

We started driving around. No particular direction and B quickly lost all memory of restaurant plans. For a while one direction would be fine, but then B would be sure we had to go a different direction. Then something spooked her and we’d turn around. Still only about 30 minutes from when we first left her apartment parking lot, I was thinking anxiety attack. My plan was calm B down, get her home and asleep. But then she started talking about seeing patterns and signs and portents and didn’t want to look at any signs as we were driving. She started asking if we were seeing them. And wondering why only she could see them when we told her we did not. I started thinking schizophrenia. My plan became to get her calm enough to get her to a hospital.

We drove through numerous north Seattle neighborhoods, some more than once: Greenwood, Green Lake, Maple Leaf, Roosevelt, U-District, Ravenna, Wedgewood, Lake City, and Northgate. B almost threw herself on the car floor when she asked me to turn around and then realized we were on a bad street (coincidentally the street where my great-aunt lives). I had been hoping to get closer to the hospital district, but B wouldn’t cross the University Bridge when we were in that area. Once she felt we needed to stop immediately, so I pulled over. Then someone came walking by and B curled up shrieking that we couldn’t talk to him and that she couldn’t see him. So I quickly pulled out. There were instances too numerous to mention when she behaved like this. All the while she was trying to determine our numbers, declaring she had to make a choice, but didn’t know what the choice was, and later that it was a choice between light and dark.

At one point we came within a dozen blocks of her apartment, and I asked if B wanted to go home. She thought so, but a block later changed her mind. Then and there I decided to head to Pill Hill no matter her reaction. I told her I thought we needed to get her to a hospital, because they would know better than we would what was going on. She thought that was a good idea (though she was absolutely sure she didn’t want the U.W. hospital), but as we crossed the Ship Canal she changed her mind. She didn’t argue when I said I still thought it was a good idea. She did say she’d made the wrong choice though.

As we got to Pill Hill, I asked B if she’d prefer Swedish, Harborview, or Virginia Mason. She was absolutely sure not Virginia Mason, but when we pulled up to Swedish she wouldn’t get out of the car. Then she decided Virginia Mason would be better so I drove over there. J and I walked B inside.

The intake person wanted to know what she needed to see a doctor for. I wanted to say we had a girl who was going psychotic on us, but I figured that might not be the best way to put it with B listening. So we said she was freaking out and seemingly having an anxiety attack. After the intake person, we saw a triage nurse. She quickly homed in on psychotic issues. Most of the folks there knew what they were doing, though I think the intake person had been slapped with a stupid stick in the past. Triage nurse called it paranoid ideations which didn’t seem to set off B. Then an orderly took us to an emergency room.

B was much calmer by now, but still not exactl cooperative. She didn’t want to let them draw blood. She wouldn’t sign the intake form. In the middle of questioning by the doctor, she would dial someone on the phone and start talking to them. I was just thinking of you. She talked to one friend who came down to the hospital. Turned out to be just in time, as B was at that moment walking out of the hospital against recommendation. Her friend talked her into going back in. At that point, J and I sat in the lobby as her friend knew hew much better and could pass on thing like relevant family medical history, including mental illness. I talked to another friend of B’s who came down as well. When she got there, we left after saying good bye to B. I didn’t want to gang up on her and I was exhausted and frazzled.

I have now been witness to a psychotic breakdown, whether actual schizophrenia or a severe anxiety attack or a brain tumor. I don’t know the cause. It’s not something they taught me how to handle in high school, so I felt particularly out of my depth for the longest time. If it ever happens again, I’m pretty sure I’m going to head straight for a hospital rather than humor the person and try to calm them down. Because there just seemed no way to calm B down.